PokerStars to donate WCOOP tournament fees to charity

13 September 2017

(PRESS RELEASE) -- PokerStars.com, the flagship brand of The Stars Group, has committed to continuing its support for the charity Raising for Effective Giving (REG) by once again donating all of the tournament fees from one of its most high-profile online tournaments, World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) 66-H: $25,000 NLHE High Roller.

The $3 million guaranteed World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) tournament begins on 21 September at 15:00ET and is considered to be one of the most prestigious titles in the online poker world. REG employs a "cause-neutral" reasoning in its philanthropy to ensure that donations make the biggest positive impact. REG empowers people to make better giving choices by promoting the idea of effective giving and providing donation advice to enable people to give to the causes that best reduce greatest sources of suffering.

In May, PokerStars donated all fees from the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) High Roller tournament and added $50,000 in matched funding through Helping Hands, The Stars Group's Corporate Giving arm, to make a total donation of $109,000 to REG.

"We wanted to send a huge thank you to those of you who played the SCOOP High Roller tourneys in May," said Team PokerStars Pros Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov, co-founders of the charity. "The fee you paid was matched by PokerStars and reached two of REG's supported charities, the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). We're excited about the fundraising campaign during WCOOP."

Stefan Huber, Managing Director of REG, added, "We are very excited to work with PokerStars again for WCOOP. Their and their customers' generous donations make a real difference. Liv and Igor's passion and dedication as REG co-founders and Team PokerStars Pros made this possible in the first place, and we're very grateful for that."

MIRI focuses on ensuring that the development of "smarter-than-human" artificial intelligence is conducted safely and has a positive impact. FHI is a research institute at the University of Oxford that uses mathematics, philosophy and science to understand the crucial issues affecting humanity and its prospects. These highly respected institutes bring together leading experts to find cutting-edge solutions for the challenges and opportunities that new technology delivers.

Players can register directly or qualify via satellites for the WCOOP High Roller tournament online at PokerStars.

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